Cycling: Plummer's Road, Millarville and Priddis loops

The weather station was reading 21 C at lunch time today, and so we headed out for our second ride of the year, just south of Calgary. There are a couple of nice loops that we've found out that way; one is 24 km and the second is 36 km. Neither of us are cycling well after a long winter lay-off, but the roads are good and the scenery is spectacular, so it was a good run. The roads are very straight and the surfaces excellent - I've done nothing in the UK to compare really - they make highways differently out here. One thing that is sobering is the lack of pubs...I'd have loved a pint at the end of my ride. I did notice a nice looking bistro place in Priddis (where for some reason all the kids ride on the left), that might be factored into a ride soon, though. Unfortunately the weather is not really playing: today I read that Professor Falls has collapsed (I had a plan for a sneaky last climb of the season in May), but the forecast for Thursday is a high of 0 C. That's just wrong.....

Last ski day of the year? April 12 2009

With a forecast for fresh snow we headed to Sunshine on Easter Sunday. We expected long queues and packed pistes, but in the event the place was dead - due to a lack of foreign holidaymakers coupled with Canadians doing the family dinner thing perhaps - plus it was sunny in Calgary. The morning snow was ice under fresh almost-powder but by lunch time things were good. The extra effort of skiing over icy ruts made a big difference - even super-fit Frans was knackered by 3 pm. The season runs for another 4-5 weeks but I think we'll be hoping for break-up on the lakes well before that, so we can get the boats out.

April 10 2009: Hell's Ridge North

Hell's Ridge North looked like a good candidate for a 'shoulder season' hike. It's in the Mike Potter guide "Ridgewalks in the Canadian Rockies". In truth, it was an absolute git of a day out, with admittedly interesting views not quite making up for slogging through deep wet snow for several hours. It was our first outing using this guide, and initial observations are that the facts are not very exact. This isn't really helped by the Gem Treks sheet for the area. which contains errors in distances that attack your confidence right at the end of the route, as the daylight begins to fade, and you don't recognise the large animal tracks in the snow that seem to get more frequent as you start to turn 180 degrees away from the point where you know you need to cross a creek that may or may not be a rushing meltwater torrent.



Still, it all worked out in the end, and although the stark statistic of 8 km hiking in 7 hours looks bad on paper, my legs were killing afterwards, so all that high-stepping and step-kicking must have been to some effect. And by now I've finally got all the pine needles out of my underwear....

Full photo set for this hike